At least I’d been given three days. Last time I’d smashed the statue in a rush to save Theo, but this time there was no need to set the temple on fire immediately.
So I decided to take my time and start by building a proper relationship of trust with Theo. Wasn’t I doing all of this to raise him well in the first place?
I opened the wardrobe and looked for something Theo could wear. Naturally, there wasn’t a single garment that fit a twelve-year-old. After some deliberation I picked out the softest, warmest-looking clothes I had and dressed him in them. I had to roll the sleeves several times before his hands came out.
“Sorry. Tomorrow I’ll go to the market and buy you clothes.”
“Thank you.”
Theo broke into a bashful smile. It hadn’t even been a full day, and he already seemed to have opened up quite a bit. Maybe because he was a child, he didn’t seem to know how to be suspicious.
Figuring it was time to sleep, I laid Theo down on the bed and started to settle on the sofa. But Theo timidly caught the hem of my clothes.
“Could you read to me before bed? My dad always used to read me storybooks.”
That was a problem. Of course there were no storybooks in my room. No, there wasn’t a single book in Shane’s room to begin with.
“I don’t have any books...”
After some thought, I offered,
“How about I tell you a story I know instead?”
Theo’s eyes lit up.
“Yes, please!”
“Then... hm. I’ll tell you the story of Snow White.”
Luckily there were no Brothers Grimm in this world. I started in on Snow White from memory, and worried that Snow White alone would be too boring, I mixed in bits of Cinderella here and there. Around the part where Snow White, fleeing the queen in glass slippers, twists her ankle, Theo’s breathing evened out.
Was that a little childish for a twelve-year-old?
I stopped the story. Theo was deep asleep, both hands gripping the blanket. After some deliberation, I carefully burrowed under the covers myself. It was far warmer than the sofa. I closed my eyes with my back against Theo’s.
The next day I hurried out and got clothes for Theo. I didn’t buy much. He was going to be fifteen soon enough anyway.
I put together a simple breakfast too. Sadly, I had little talent for cooking. Fried bacon, one fried egg, a few vegetables on the side, and that was the whole of it. It was an embarrassing thing to call a meal, but Theo ate every bite.
“If you’re done eating, want to head over to the temple with me?”
“The temple?”
“Mm. I want to ask a cleric to say a blessing for you.”
I layered Theo up, put a thick fur coat on him and wrapped a scarf around his neck. After fitting gloves on his hands, I took one of them and we set off for the Temple of Repinal together.
The broken pieces of the statue had been cleared away without a trace. The spot where the enormous statue had stood was empty, and in front of it were gathered small figures of Repinal that people had brought from their homes. Most were wooden carvings, each a little misshapen because they’d been whittled by hand. And yet, strangely, they struck me as more beautiful than the graceful marble statue had been.
Theo put his hands together in front of them and prayed quietly.
“What did you pray for?”
“A prayer of thanks. Thanking her for letting me meet you, Rihen.”
I faltered for a moment at the name “Rihen.” By rights, you should have met the real Rihen. Not a half-blood demon.
When we stepped inside the temple, an apprentice cleric with short pink hair greeted us warmly. It was the NPC cleric, Luna.
“What brings you here?”
“I’ve come to ask you to grant this child a blessing.”
Even while I talked with Luna, my eyes kept sweeping the interior. Where would be best to start a fire, how to do it most safely. Those were the things on my mind.
The blessing rite was simpler than I’d expected. Luna laid a careful hand on the child’s head and murmured a short prayer. A faint light glimmered above Theo’s head. It died down quickly, and with that the rite was over.
“All done.”
Luna said. Theo blinked a few times, then lifted his head.
“I think my head feels a bit clearer.”
“That’s the blessing. Your body and your heart should both feel a little lighter.”
She smiled brightly.
Cold air brushed our faces as we came outside. Theo held my hand tightly and said,
“I think it was good that we came to the temple.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm. I feel more at ease.”
At that I smiled and nodded.
“If you’re happy, I’m happy.”
For lunch we had proper food at a restaurant nearby.
Theo seemed to have a great many questions about this human being called me, and he kept firing them off all through the meal.
My age, my hobbies, whether I was married, foods I liked, foods I hated.
“I’m twenty-five.”
Exactly one hundred years off Shane’s age of 125. By his looks, and by human standards, it wasn’t an awkward setting at all.
“And your hobbies?”
“Nothing in particular.”
“Are you married?”
“No. No fiancé either.”
“What about foods you like and don’t like?”
“I think I eat just about anything.”
I answered most of the questions without any trouble, but got stuck on exactly one.
“What do you do for work?”
A troublesome question. I could hardly confess to being a demon corps commander. And if I slapped together some normal-sounding job, cleaning up after it later would obviously be a pain. After some deliberation, I ended up answering like this.
“...I’m unemployed.”
“What’s unemployed?”
“It means I don’t have a job.”
At that, Theo picked the menu back up. He checked the price of the beef soup he was eating and his eyes went wide.
“Can we really eat this?”
“It’s fine. I inherited a decent amount of money.”
So I’d decided to become a stay-at-home security guard living off his parents’ inheritance.
After some deliberation Theo pushed the menu aside and picked his spoon back up, but soon he muttered with a worried face,
“Still, I think you should get a job.”
“Mm. I’ll work on it.”
I answered half-heartedly, scooping up a spoonful of soup.
Next we stopped by a bookstore and bought real storybooks. The colored picture books were fairly expensive, but for Theo’s sake I didn’t begrudge that kind of spending at all.
I picked out a few books for myself as well. A History of Imperial Faith, The Ecology of Demons, How to Care for a Child. On the surface, books with no particular connection to one another.
For dinner I bought bread from a nearby bakery and we ate at home. When I spread jam on the bread and served it with milk, Theo ate without a word of complaint. Even so, I did think I ought to learn to cook a little better. I wanted to feed him a wider variety of food.
That night I read him one of the storybooks we’d bought. It was a heartwarming tale about a hero defeating the demons. Theo loved it so much that he pestered me to read it again and again.
Once I’d confirmed that his breathing had gone completely even, I slipped out of bed without a sound.
Now it was time to go do my secret night work.
Late that night, the temple door opened carefully. The cleric on duty, who had been nodding off inside the confessional, rubbed his eyes and straightened up.
A clear voice came from beyond the curtain.
“I’ve come to make a confession.”
“What sin have you committed? Confess everything to Repinal, Goddess of Dawn.”
The cleric recited the set phrase by rote.
“I haven’t committed it yet. But I intend to, soon.”
The unexpected answer made the cleric tilt his head. The rosary in his hand swayed slightly.
“Might you tell me in detail what sin you intend to commit?”
the cleric asked carefully. The reply came soon after. A voice as cunning as a serpent and as innocent as a white dove.
“Two days from now, at midnight, I’m going to set this temple on fire.”
“Wh-What-!”
The cleric shot to his feet and swept the curtain aside. In that instant, the air in the temple froze. The visitor’s face couldn’t be seen. No, his face was plainly exposed and yet his features couldn’t be perceived. The blinking eyelids, the mouth curving into an arc, all of it was visible, and still the overall impression refused to come together. Like fog had settled inside his head.
A red pendant engraved with a geometric eyeball pattern caught the scarlet lamplight and glinted horribly. That told him everything. The corps commander who had destroyed the statue had come back to deliver another nightmare. The cleric let his mouth fall open stupidly and trembled with terror.
“I wanted to test how much you people love your goddess.”
The commander smiled. Thick mischief gathered at his lips.
“When you know in advance that the temple is going to burn, will you stand and fight the fire?”
The devil’s gaze ran the cleric through.
“Or will you empty the temple and run to save your lives?”
A suffocating silence passed. The one to break it was, of course, the commander.
“For the record, I’d bet everything on the latter.”
A cool laugh spread through the darkness.
Just as when he’d destroyed the statue, the commander vanished without leaving a single trace behind. As if he’d never been there at all.
With shaking hands, the cleric rang the bell. Other clerics came running, and a meeting was held deep inside the temple.
The confusion didn’t last long.
Another temple might have written the commander’s threat off as a bluff. But the clerics of the Temple of Repinal were different. More than anything, they despised ceremonial worship and hollow displays of courage. The safety of clerics and worshippers was the most important principle this temple had ever upheld.
“A person has to be alive to praise the goddess.”
the high priest said with feeling. No one argued.
The decision came quickly. Leaving only the high priest behind, all the other clerics would clear out of the temple. The worshippers were told it was a “temporary closure in preparation for a rite.” At the same time, word was sent to the knights. Every knight who would defend the temple was issued armor with fire resistance.
The high priest gazed forlornly at the emptying temple, then stood alone before the altar. The place where the fallen statue of the goddess had been. Now a space filled with small figures the worshippers had made with their own hands. Looking at that spot, he prayed quietly.
“Goddess, destroy the evil.”
And somewhere in the darkness, someone was quietly watching all of this. The Thirteenth Corps Commander, Shane, with his ash-heap gray hair and hollow blood-red eyes.
